Currently, the Navajo Generating Station employs more than 700 people — more than 90 percent of whom are Native American. Losing those jobs could devastate the reservation, but developments like this solar project should soften the blow. During the heaviest construction period, roughly 80 percent of those working on the project were Navajo. And though a Tempe-based company is currently operating the project, the Nation is working on plans to take over its management.

The coal plant shutting down is “forcing us to make a huge paradigm shift,” Navajo President Russell Begaye told PRI’s The World in June. “I’m getting our nation ready to make this transition.”